Twelve Links of Dependent Arising (12연기)

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The
Twelve Links of Dependent Arising (paticca-samuppada) 12연기

All
beings come into being or cease to be based on the causes and conditions which brought
them into existence. In other words, they arise or cease only through
interdependent relationships. This is the principle of dependent arising.
Things exist as they are because of the phenomenon of causation. Nothing exists
on its own independent of anything else. Dependent arising clarifies phenomenal
existence and its formation. Because twelve phases interact with each other in
the process of causation, Buddhists call them the “twelve links of dependent
arising.”

①Ignorance (avijja): A fundamental delusion which does not know the truth,
including the Four Noble Truths.②Mental formations (sankhara): Intentional actions due to ignorance; from
this comes the karma we create. ③Consciousness (vinnana): The six consciousnesses which are: visual, auditory, olfactory, taste, tactile and conceptual
consciousnesses.④Name and form (nama-rupa): “Name” refers to mind which has name but no
form while “form” refers to the material and physical which have form.⑤The six sensory gates (salayatana): The eyes, ears,
nose, tongue, skin and mind.⑥Contact (phassa): This arises when there is interaction between the six
sense organs, the objects they perceive and the six consciousnesses.⑦Feeling (vedana): There are three types of feeling: pleasant, painful and
neutral which is neither pleasant nor painful. ⑧Craving (tanha): Drives, longings and cravings that seek to satisfy desires.⑨Clinging (upadana): Grasping or attachment when one wants something for
their own.⑩Becoming (bhava): The karmic consciousness of sentient beings which repeats
the cycle of birth and death in samsara. ⑪Birth (jati): The entrance of a
sentient being into the realm of sentient beings.⑫Ageing and death (jara-marana): Birth, sickness, ageing and death
represent the suffering of sentient beings.

- excerpt from Buddhist English (Elementary 2) published in 2014 by the Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism​​​